


Learning the Ropes

by MalkyTop



Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Power Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalkyTop/pseuds/MalkyTop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mishap with the Sun Chi Lantern results in the four monks gaining elemental powers that they aren't used to. To get back to normal, they'll need to use the Lantern again - unfortunately, it's in Jack's possession and none of them are quite in top fighting shape. Each of them will have to learn the intricacies of a different element, which is easier said than done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Clay, I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown!"

There was no immediate reply. Instead, Clay stared at the glowing object he had just braved thousands of stinging pine needles for. Then he looked down at his friends. "What's this 'un do again?"

"Da Hippa Hoppa," Dojo said, poking his head out from under Omi's warm beanie hat, "lets the user speak in rhymes."

Jack, who opted for the option that  _wasn't_  climbing up a startlingly large pine tree, hovered in the air. "C'mon, cowboy, I don't have all day! I'm wagering the Reversing Mirror."

Clay didn't even bother to give Jack Spicer,  _evil_ boy genius, a glance. His face went through a few deliberative expressions before he said, teeth chattering slightly, "I reckon we could pro'lly let this 'un go."

The reaction was immediate on both sides.

" _What_? You think you're too  _good_  for me?!" Jack exploded, landing on Clay's branch looking as offended as he could and pressing a gloved finger into Clay's forehead.

"Clay, dude, do you  _really_  wanna be the first guy to turn down a Showdown?"

"Granted, that  _would_  make my life easier…"

"Besides, it's just Jack. He's a total pushover."

"Yeah, I –  _hey!_ "

"At the tip of this, having the Reversing Mirror back would be most helpful."

"On top of that," Clay corrected automatically.

"Stop talking like you've already won," Jack whined. Now that the monks were all Wudai Warriors (and one Shoku Warrior), what made Jack difficult to deal with weren't his robots anymore. Nor was it his cunning plans to sneak into their safe to clean all the Wu out. No, what made Jack so difficult was his whining. His voice crawled up Clay's spine and fried his brain stem and left his ear drums fizzling.

The Texan sighed. "Let's get this over with. I guess I'll wager…th' Sun Chi Lantern?"

If asked, Clay would have said that the reason he brought the Sun Chi Lantern was because it was possible that combining all chi – just the elemental bits – in one Warrior might get the same results as when Omi absorbed all the elemental Wu's powers – which was destructive, yes, but could prove to be useful if you could control when to turn that power on and off.

The real reason was because he had hoped that it would keep him warm in Canada, which was colder'n a –

"The game's Red Light Green Light," Jack interrupted, obviously holding back another whine about how he wasn't taking this seriously  _at all_. "First to the end wins. Let's go!"

"XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN!"

The tall pine trees, so tall that they could block out the sun, grew even taller and parted to make a path. The snow, to Clay's consternation, got heavier, rising to his waist now. A frozen lake rose from nowhere and a weather-beaten lighthouse erupted from tough-dirt-turned-scraggly-cliffs. Da Hippa Hoppa flew up and took its place as the light. The Dragons who weren't participating found themselves elevated over the midpoint, where forest path met lake.

"Gong Yi Tanpai!" shouted Jack enthusiastically.

Clay, feeling even colder in his uniform, only managed a grunt before he started pushing forward. Jack, of course, was above wading through the snow, at least while he had a heli-pack, and so he flew ahead.

"See ya at the end, cowpoke! Or should I say,  _slow_ poke!" Jack crowed. Off in the distance, Clay could see his friends shouting faint encouragements at him, but he couldn't help but get distracted by the snow in his boots. Oh, and also Jack was very clearly winning. That was distracting too, if only because the pasty snake took every opportunity to  _revel_  in it.

At least until the light turned red.

For Clay, stopping was easy. There was already waist-deep snow in the way, thicker than the air on a humid July morn. For Jack, the only thing between him and the lighthouse was air and time, neither of them very concrete. Even when he stopped flying forward, there was the tiny matter of inertia, which he had forgotten.

Although Clay couldn't turn his head and watch the entire journey, he took great pleasure in seeing Jack smack face-first into a tree that had sprouted instantaneously in order to push him all the way back to the start.

Jack slid down into the snow that he now realized he would have to  _walk_  in, then popped up again, shouting, "Jackbots,  _attack_!"

Clay didn't take great pleasure in that at all as he stared at the red light ahead, willing desperately for it to turn green as he heard running engines, whirring blades, somewhere behind his back and  _getting closer_ …

The light turned green.

To the background of distant whoops and cheers, Clay immediately backflipped and kicked one Jackbot to the ground. The cowboy stumbled in the restrictive snow, which gave a second robot the opportunity to tackle him. Unfortunately for it, it got within arm's length. Clay grasped the cold,  _cold_  robot by the head and swung it straight at a third Jackbot that tried to fire at him and the two exploded pathetically. It was slightly strange that there were only three, but Clay didn't have time to think about that because Jack had taken the chance to catch up, and so he plowed forward.

Neither one tried to attack the other. The snow just got in the way, and attacking would only waste time. Instead, Jack kept his eyes focused on the lighthouse. Clay divided his attention between the lighthouse  _and_  Jack, so he was able to notice two things. First, just as he was getting close to the frozen lake, the lighthouse started to turn red. He froze. (Metaphorically, of course. Literally speaking, he had been freezing for the past few hours.) Second, right before Jack obeyed the red light, he pressed a button on his watch.

So that's where the other 'bots were.

Not confined to the rules of the game, the Jackbots were free to move at will – Jack's will, to be precise. "Aw heck," Clay said, or at least he was sorely tempted to, but instead he gritted his teeth as the robots fired mercilessly at his back, his legs, his arms.

All he did was stand his ground, even as his skin started smellin' like a slab of pork on Daddy's grill in the heat of the summer. As the barrage continued, he shuddered inside, screamed and twisted; outside, he only dug his heels in. Slightly behind him, Jack was probably grinning like a madman. Clay thought some choice words at him.

Above, the tone of his friends changed and he could actually hear what they were saying. Dojo was giving Clay's choice words a voice, and then some, because when you live as long as Dojo, you learn some especially colorful language. Kimiko was alternating between acting as a chorus to back Dojo up and shouting at him, "Stop it, Clay! That's enough! You don't have to do this!"

Omi was silent. Even though things had dropped down to relatively normal after the whole parallel-universe-time-travel adventure, even when Omi joked and laughed like the rest of them, everybody knew that something changed for the youngest monk. Everybody was afraid to bring it up. Clay only figured out what was going on because Dojo had taken on damage from the trip as well and they had a therapeutic talk together. He didn't mention it to anybody else, as much as he wanted to, because you just don't air out someone else's laundry out in the open. Not without their permission.

Raimundo was shouting down at him, sounding angry but looking hurt. "Clay! It's not worth it! Get outta there!"

_Green green green green green_ , Clay thought, but the lighthouse did not cooperate and his skin was blistering and he was too hot  _and_  too cold and he finally couldn't take it anymore  _this was way too much trouble for a magical rhyming dictionary_.

One robot stopped shooting Clay because he turned around and pulled off its gun. He managed to smack off the head of another. Then a giant hand made of snow rose, plowing through the rest of the Jackbots, and grabbed Clay  _and his tender back_  and pulled him to the start.

But not before Clay got out a lasso and tripped Jack onto his smug face.

"Ugh, why'd you have to go and  _do_  that?" Jack huffed as though he hadn't ordered robots to shoot Clay's back into singed paste. Clay only stumbled when he was on his feet again and the light turned green.

The good news was that he already had a nice path paved through the snow. The bad news was that so did Jack, who had the distinct advantage of being uninjured. Jack ran full-tilt. Clay managed a quarter-tilt. The lake, which had been so close before, was now so far that it made his knees wobble even more and the tone of his friends did not rise to encouraging but stayed level at worriment.

Wait.

With a fixed goal in mind, Clay started speeding up. He needed to get closer. Jack was already pushing the rest of his way onto the lake, but he couldn't focus on that. As he ran, approaching half-tilt, he held up his wagered Wu.

"Sun Chi Lan'ern!" he slurred. The bright light threw wild shadows and blinded his friends. Clay managed a relieved grin as he saw their chi get drawn towards him and he took a deep, steady breath. His wounds did not heal, but the pain seemed so far away with his now four-fold strength and the air thrummed around him and he felt  _light_. Which was a first, he had to admit.

Jack was now on the ice and gaining considerable speed since his boots apparently had built-in ice skates. Which was kind of weird, but certainly gave him a further advantage now that he was in his own element. Clay leaned forward and ran at full-tilt-and-a-half, the Lantern shining and swinging at his waist.

The wind tugged at his clothes, capricious, egging him forward. The ground beneath pushed at his feet. The snow seemed to fly away from him. And best of all, he felt  _warm_.

Halfway across the ice, Jack turned and saw Clay charging right at him, a scene that didn't exactly come straight from his nightmares, but it was close. He didn't panic – well, not much, anyways. Instead, his eyes drawn to the shining Lantern, he spun neatly on his skates (a move that Clay couldn't help but admire) and pulled out his own wager.

"Reversing Mirror!"

There was light again, but a focused beam rather than an encompassing glow, and it didn't keep sustained. It sped to the Sun Chi Lantern and then seemed to suck the light right out. And then, with a force that mere light didn't have, the Sun Chi Lantern expelled its contents violently, causing even the monks on their perch to fall over.

Jack anchored himself with his skates while Clay slid backwards, the pain from his injuries surging back like old friends who wanted to sleep on his couch. He managed to stop by digging his heels in the ice, then fell to his knees, trying not to shudder.

The light turned red.

Jack was facing him, looking pretty confident that he would win. And Clay knew that he definitely would, unless he could think of a plan.

He was out on the ice. This wasn't a particularly good place for him to be. And Jack, on his skates, could probably rocket all the way to the end. But only if there was ice to  _skate_  on…

Clay knew his way around fissures, and although it was mostly fissures in the earth, fissures in ice couldn't be too much different. It was less structurally sound, maybe, so cracks wouldn't just form in a straight line but branch off a bit. Maybe even break up into tiny chunks, stranding Jack in the middle of a bunch of small pieces of  _moving_  ice. Let's see his fancy footwork get out of  _that_ …

Clay suddenly realized that the ice underneath him seemed to be shifting. He reluctantly withdrew from his thoughts and found to his immense confusion (and displeasure) that the ice he had been on had broken off from the rest in the form of a perfect circle.

This was not a particularly good place for him to be.

The ice flipped over, and as a result flipped  _him_  over. Clay only managed a yelp before he went under, submerged in cold, cold,  _cold_  water.

The light turned green at some point. He didn't know when. The only thing he was painfully aware of was that he hadn't had enough time to take in a deep breath.

It was dark under the ice. But it was only dark because Clay instinctively shut his eyes. He wasn't sure he could bring himself to open them. Meaning he wasn't sure which way was up anymore.

Kicking around revealed nothing. Neither did flailing. He was going to drown. His hat drifted off somewhere. He reached for it and his fingers brushed something solid. He was going to drown. He tried to push up but it wouldn't budge. Where was that circle?  _He was going to drown_.

Jack won the Showdown. Clay knew this because he suddenly was not drowning, instead he was back in his winter clothes, curled up in the snow, dripping wet, colder than anything he could describe.

Jack flew away with taunts and a little more self-esteem, but nobody paid attention to him because there were more important things going on.

"Clay!" Kimiko reached him first, already reaching her PDA and looking for symptoms of hypothermia. A master of one-handed typing, she used her free hand to ease the large Texan into a sitting position. Kimiko's hands always seemed warm in comparison to everybody else's. This time, however, Clay barely felt her touch.

Dojo jumped on him next, having curled around Kimiko's shoulder for a free ride. " _Clay!_  Speak to me, ol' buddy, ol' pal! How many fingers am I holding up? D'ya need fire? I can do fire!"

" _No_ ," Kimiko snapped. "He needs to warm up  _gradually_  or he could die of thermal shock. Clay, are you conscious? Do you feel cold?"

"Unforshun'ly," he said through chattering teeth.

"We must take him back to the temple at once," Omi insisted. His eyes looked like they were misting over. Raimundo was already picking Clay up by the arm while Dojo grew to flying size, his tail coiling wretchedly around the trees. "You're gonna be okay," said the dragon, more to convince himself than anybody else.

Clay's response was to groan, reminding everybody about his  _other_  injuries.

"We need to take him to a  _hospital_ ," Kimiko corrected. "We can't move him around too much. Flying's too dangerous."

"Then what do we  _do_?" Raimundo held Clay gingerly, not sure if he was supposed to put him down again. His guilt about what he had said in the beginning boiled from self-loathing to outright rage. "How did that even happen? That ice was  _solid_! Jack musta cheated somehow!"

Kimiko took Clay's other arm and started to guide him over to Dojo's back. "Dojo, you think you could be a sled?" The dragon's response was to make himself a little flatter.

Omi, unnerved by Clay's silence, started pelting him with words. Clay only responded with grunts, but that was enough to keep his fears at bay. Raimundo was still fuming at himself.

"The next time I see Spicer, I swear I'll  _kill_  him," he spat, punctuating this announcement with a kick at the ground.

The earth responded, rising with his indignation. Raimundo froze in post-kick. Kimiko, Omi, and Dojo went silent. They all forgot Clay for a second.

But only for a second.

 


	2. Chapter 2

After a couple of days, Clay was back at the table, eating with a pair of chopsticks in each hand. Which, as far as he was concerned, meant that he was in pretty good shape. This left everybody free to think about what the heck was going on.

"It seems to me," said Master Fung, "that when Jack used the Reversing Mirror, it caused the Sun Chi Lantern to expel its contents randomly. As a result, all of you have received the wrong elemental chi."

Kimiko, averting her eyes from Clay as he engulfed the table's contents, flicked a finger idly. Usually, a flame would have sparked. This time, however, there was nothing more than a brief breeze. "Sooo…if we used the Sun Chi Lantern again, it'll put our chi back in the right places?"

"Worth a shot," said Clay, finally swallowing. The method he used to never choke on his food was a mystery to all, possibly even to him. "'Cept I went an' lost it t' Jack."

Omi slid over to Clay's side and gingerly patted his bandaged back. "Do not feel so sad, my friend. None of us blame you for your failure." Clay knew that this was just the way Omi showed affection – through unintentionally tactless statements meant to console. It still did nothing to lift his spirits. "Besides, we can always ask Jack to borrow the Sun Chi Lantern!"

"And kick his butt when he refuses," Raimundo added from the side of the room, illustrating with a particularly flexible kick. The ground underneath reacted, rattling the tiled floor and the dishes off the table – all of which Clay caught. Master Fung set a hand on the extended leg and pushed it down.

"I would advise against being so confident, especially in your condition," the old man said. "Your chi has been severely unbalanced. If you do not properly train with your new elements, you may not be able to properly control yourselves during a fight. You may not even be able to control yourselves  _outside_  a fight." At this, Raimundo leaned back on his heels and avoided Master Fung's gaze by staring at the ceiling instead.

"I would not worry about me, Master Fung," said Omi, standing up on his chair. This did not elevate his height very much. "I mastered all the elements before. I am sure I already know how to control myself! And I would also be willing to help my friends if they need it," he added, his wide grin expressing an excitement that was not entirely appropriate to the situation.

"Okay, first of all, you didn't  _master_  all the elements, you  _absorbed_  them. If you had  _mastered_  them, you would've beaten Hannibal a lot faster. Speaking of which," Raimundo continued, ignoring Omi's obvious attempts to get a word in, "why don't we just use our elemental Wu? Then we can fight the way we're used to, right?"

"Remember what happened th'  _last_  time someone controlled more'n one element?" Clay pointed out, also talking over Omi's attempts to cut in. "I reckon we wanna avoid that."

"Hey, we're still the same people, aren't we? So  _technically_ , we've only absorbed our own element," Raimundo countered. At this point, Omi simply gave up and simply shut his mouth with a sour expression.

" _Technically_ , you are  _not_  the same people," said Master Fung. "Your powers are connected with your chi, and whatever powers you absorb are connected with your chi. This means," he added, as though foreseeing what Raimundo was about to say, "that the Wudai Weapons you are used to wielding will not respond. They too are connected with your chi."

Raimundo scowled. "Y'know something? I still don't know exactly what chi is, but it sure is a pain in the neck."

"Yup, sounds about right," said Dojo with a thoughtful nod.

"So basically, no powers, no elemental wu, no Wudai Weapons," said Kimiko, counting off her fingers.

"Surely we can still defeat Jack Spicer through our martial arts," Omi said, his optimism shining through. The child's good cheer was interrupted by a loud and familiar whirring sound.

As everybody expected, when the four monks jumped outside, Jack was there to greet them with the usual army of robots. He was holding Da Hippa Hoppa in his hands. What he wasn't holding, they noticed, was the Sun Chi Lantern.

Hovering in the air, Jack proudly held Da Hippa Hoppa to his mouth like a microphone. It was then the monks noticed that he was wearing a beret.

"You would have been safer if you hid in your room. Now, Xiaolin losers…prepare to meet your doom!"

The Jack-bots applauded the impromptu poetry. The monks mostly groaned. "Great, he's found a way to be even  _more_  annoying," Raimundo growled, keeping his fighting stance up.

"Jack Spicer!" Omi shouted from the front, pointing with flair. "Your inadequate poetry will not enhance the fighting prowess of your robots! We shall be victorious as always!"

"Yeah, funny thing," Jack said, thankfully moving his mouth away from Da Hippa Hoppa. "Turns out, poetry contests have reeeally sweet cash prizes. I might even get a book deal! Who knew that people still read poetry, amiright?"

This information was met by unimpressed silence. Jack decided to get to the point.

"So yesterday, all my Jack-bots got some much needed upgrades." The hovering redhead rapped his knuckles on the nearest robot, which made an unimpressively hollow sound. "New armor, more firepower, better insurance, basically, these aren't the Jack-bots you losers are used to fighting – no, they're new and improved."

Kimiko squinted at the robot army. "They look the same."

"Kimiko, Kimiko, Kimiko." Jack shook his head disparagingly. "You are  _so_  closed-minded. Hey Jack-bots! Show 'em what you can do!"

At the snap of his fingers, the robots transformed in various ways. Some of them just tucked in their appendages. Some folded into odd shapes. Others seemed to change entirely into something different. Every bot eventually came together to form something much more formidable.

The giant robot slammed its legs made of Jack-bots on the tiles, cracking them. It almost loomed over the roofs of the temple. One leg accidentally knocked over the fountain, spraying water everywhere. With a triumphant grin, Jack brought Da Hippa Hoppa up to his face again.

"Well, I hate to  _steal and run_ , but I think I'll just leave you to your  _fun_."

The large robot paused in its menace to briefly clap for Jack as he zoomed over to the vault.

"You guys take care of the tin can," Raimundo called out, already sprinting towards the vault and launching himself into the air, "I'll catch up with – "

Much to his consternation, Raimundo found himself face-flat on the ground rather than flying in the air. Oh yeah. He was the earth guy now. Slow.  _Grounded._

When he looked up again, he was met with the unwelcome sight of a fast-approaching robot foot. A second later, he felt the familiar tug of a rope pulling him out of danger. Clay caught him as the giant foot stomped on where Raimundo had lain prone.

"Thanks dude," he said, slipping himself out of the lasso. Now who had wind again…?

The robot leveled an arm at the four monks and shot out several rockets, all of which were dodged in turn. Unfortunately, none of them were quite able to dodge the resulting blast, which knocked Omi right into a wall and Clay straight into a building.

Raimundo rolled into the ruined fountain and jumped to his feet, sopping wet. Kimiko landed gracefully to his left. Ah, that's right.

"Kimiko," Raimundo said, edging towards her while keeping his eyes fixed on the robot. "You're gonna need to fly over there and stop Jack."

With an incredulous look, she replied, " _Fly?_  I don't even know how to  _fight_  with your element, and you want me to _fly?_ "

The giant robot wound up a punch, only to be interrupted by Clay rocketing out of the door and ramming into its thigh. His intention was to knock a few of the Jack-bots out of the formation, but all he really managed to do is bruise his shoulder something awful. As he rubbed his arm, Omi followed up with a more successful attack to the back of the knee, making the giant robot stagger.

"Look, it's easy, it's all about using…like…circular motion or something. Like a spring if it was also a tornado." Even without looking at her, Raimundo could feel Kimiko's glare. "C'mon, Kimiko, you're the one who can get there the fastest now and we  _can't_  let Jack clean us out!"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. Fine." Kimiko stepped back as Omi made a follow-up attack, managing to knock out the Jack-bot acting as a knee cap. The giant robot struggled to balance on one leg, at least for a few seconds, before the knee cap propelled itself back into place. Thinking back to all the times Raimundo showed off his flying prowess, Kimiko tried to call upon the wind in the same way she used to call upon fire, bending it around her until it swirled like a cyclone. She rose slowly, unsteadily, feeling unnerved with having nothing solid under her feet. The air spun faster around her.

As soon as he felt the wind beating against his back, Raimundo knew something was wrong. "Wait, Kimiko, that's too – " But he was too late. When he turned around, Kimiko had accidentally launched herself thirty feet into the air – backwards. Raimundo watched her shoot over the temple walls.

"Okay. New plan." There was a painful-sounding smack, and then Clay landed in the rubble that used to be the fountain. Omi jumped back to join the group as the robot struggled to pull its fist out of the ground.

"Y'know buddy, don' mean t' sound pushy or nothin' but we could sure use a hand," said Clay, groaning as he sat up.

"I must admit, Jack has built much more durable foes. Usually they explode after one kick."

"Sorry guys." At this point, the Jackbots forming the fist decided it would be easier to dislodge themselves if they unlinked and reformed outside of the hole. Seeing his opportunity, Raimundo leapt towards the disconnected swarm (not falling on his face this time), shouting back, "Get the little dudes!"

Everybody got the gist immediately, including the Jack-bot conglomerate, which instantly moved to protect its dissipated hand by using its remaining one to swat at the boys, who were able to dodge it. The Jack-bots were not so lucky – most were slammed into irreparable pieces and thus were no longer functional. If the giant robot had a vocal system, it would have probably said, "Oops."

"Take out the legs," Raimundo called out, and Clay was about to slam his foot on the ground when he remembered himself and instead clumsily switched to making a strong pushing motion with his arms. Behind him, the water gushing from the broken fountain reacted, slamming into the right leg in a strong, continuous stream. Eventually, the pressure was too much and the bonds that connected the Jack-bots broke, causing the leg to scatter. Before any of them could regroup, Raimundo instantly jumped into the fray, swinging confused robots into each other and throwing even more against the ground. Clay provided support by charging the much more rammable Jack-bots until they fell apart.

Omi stood back to shoot a burst of fire at the other leg but flinched at the heat, letting the attack peter out so that it did nothing more than heat up the leg slightly. He did not have time to be disappointed in his performance, however, because in the aftermath of his attack, he quickly noticed that he was on fire.

With a loud scream that interrupted all action, Omi ran flaming to the ruined fountain and jumped into the gushing water.

When Raimundo and Clay turned their attention back to the rampaging robot, they realized that it had taken the opportunity to aim some sort of hand cannon at them at an uncomfortably close range. Both of them stared down the barrel, almost blinded by a fully-charged shot.

Once again, the scene was interrupted by a scream, but a distinctly more feminine one, and definitely one of anger rather than fear. Kimiko had launched herself back over the wall and was now zooming down towards the robot with a fearsome expression on her face and two bursts of air spinning around her hands. Pulling both arms back, she released the two shots with such force that the recoil sent her crashing into a wall. But at the same time, it unbalanced the robot enough so that it simply fell over and broke apart into little Jack-bots upon collision with the ground.

As Jack-bots rained from the sky, Raimundo ran over to where Kimiko landed while Clay sprinted towards the vault, only to find Jack already flying away, a comically oversized bag over his shoulder. Seeing that their job was done, the Jack-bots that were still able to move trailed after his retreating figure. His only farewell was to sneer and call, "Later, Xiaolin  _losers_."

The attack had hit their vault hard. As the rest approached the building in various state of injury, Clay met them at the door with a dour face. "'Fraid Jack didn't hold back," he said, holding up the Mantis Flip Coin and the Lotus Twister.

"Two," Raimundo stated blankly. "We've got  _two_  Wu left."

"How did he get so much?" Kimiko asked, leaning against Raimundo to avoid putting weight on her injured leg. "He's  _never_  stolen this much before."

Omi was singed and his arms somewhat blistered, but he was otherwise fine. What hurt the most for him was his self-esteem. "It is because we have never taken so long in fighting off his robots before."

"We  _have_  to take the Sun Chi Lantern back."

"Hate t' break it t'ya, pardner, but if we barely stood up t' that monster of a 'bot here, what makes ya think we can beat it on its home turf?"

Raimundo only clenched a fist and glared at the ground. "I…don't know."

"It seems to me," said Master Fung, suddenly appearing behind them with his usual quiet flair, "that it is time to go back to the basics."

Nobody liked the sound of that.

 


	3. Chapter 3

"Too sloppy. Your feet are too wide apart and your body is much too tense. Again!"

Raimundo turned away from Kimiko and eyed the other training group. "Omi, I think you're being a little too strict."

As Clay repeated the exercise, going through the motions of slamming a ribbon of water into a training dummy, Omi paced around his legs, not even bothering to glance at Raimundo. "Master Fung said that in order to be able to fight well again, we must teach each other how to fight with our elements, and this is what I am doing."

"Yeah, we're teaching 'em to fight, not cramming like all of kung-fu in their heads. He's hitting the dummy, ain't he?" The sound of water thudding against wood served to punctuate and support Raimundo's statement.

"That may be so, but a sloppy stance means a weak attack. If we are to fight as best as we can, we must perfect our styles. Which means, Clay, that you need to  _relax your arms_. Again!"

Raimundo rolled his eyes and turned back to the little cyclone that Kimiko was using to support a pot. She had managed to learn how to keep objects stable in the air, but she hadn't quite handled moving around. When she tried once more, the pot instantly wobbled and then careened uncontrollably onto the roof of the temple. Everybody winced at the sound of shattering pottery. Raimundo just reached for the pile of pots behind him and threw another into the air, which Kimiko managed to catch. "Weight of distribution," he reminded her, and she sighed and nodded, head brimming with lectures about wind currents and directional speed.

For a while, the only sounds were of water against dummy, Omi's criticisms, ("Your movements must be  _fluid_ like the water _. Be_ the water!") and occasionally, a shattering pot. Leaning against a pole, Raimundo casually said, "We really don't have to be 'the best.' We just gotta get good enough to beat Jack and nab the Sun Chi Lantern."

"I refuse to take off the slack," Omi retorted, crossing his arms and looking at his leader from the side of his eyes. After a bit of thought, Raimundo figured that he meant 'slack off.' "As leader, you should know better than that. Besides, you are just jealous that I'm making more progress with my student than you are."

Raimundo rolled his eyes. When it came to Omi, he seemed to do it a lot. It wasn't that he was insufferable, but sometimes he was just  _insufferable_. "It's not a competition, Omi."

"But if it were, I would be winning." Raimundo rolled his eyes again and made another casual, biting remark which quickly started a tense argument.

As he struck the training dummy once more, Clay glanced over to Kimiko, and for a short moment the two of them shared a feeling of resigned exasperation that seemed to go on forever. Through that one look, the two reached an agreement. "Say, why don't we switch off fer now?" Clay said brightly.

Omi broke off from the argument to give Clay a Look. "At this rate, you'll  _never_  learn Tornado Strike."

Clay shrugged. "Y'know, maybe I can't."

The Look intensified, with the addition of a pitiful pout. "Do you think…I am not a skilled enough teacher…?"

"No! No, no, that ain't what I…I mean," Clay spluttered, his arms going through several positions, all of them flustered. "I meant – I meant…heck, ferget it, sometimes my big ol' gab works faster than my head, alright?"

"I think what Clay's trying to say," Kimiko jumped in, standing beside the tongue-tied Texan, "is that you two need as much training as we do. So why don't we do the teaching for a while?"

Raimundo said nothing, but his face said everything for him. Omi made his objections known more vocally. "While I appreciate the offer, I do not need any training. Remember, I've mastered all the elements before!"

"Absorbed."

"Either way, I already know how to control fire." To illustrate this point, Omi whirled around shooting the training dummy with an impressive display of fireballs. By the end of it, the training dummy and the area around it were on fire. Omi's robes were too.

Omi's yelp was cut short by Clay dumping water on top of his head.

"Yeah, the whole 'setting yourself on fire' thing seems like a pretty big problem," Raimundo noted drily.

Kimiko saw Omi's disappointed expression and laid a hand on his shoulder, leaning down to his level. "I had some problems with that too, starting out. I can totally help you out with that."

As Omi wrung out his clothes, he gritted his teeth. "I am  _fine_. I do not need your help, Kimiko. If  _you_  were able to do it, then it is unlikely to be difficult for  _me_."

Kimiko's grip on his shoulder suddenly tightened, her neatly filed nails digging into his skin. Her encouraging smile did not appear to change outwardly, but there was a certain look in her eye that probably would have set fire to something even without fire-related powers. Both Raimundo and Clay started edging away from the volatile scene. "And what's  _that_  supposed to mean?"

Omi had been in this situation many times before, but he had not yet figured out how to retract his statements with grace, or even how to not make the offensive statements in the first place. As he started to lose all feeling in his shoulder, his mind strained for something that would defuse the situation. "I-I am only saying that I am skilled enough to handle your  _element_!" He squeaked out the last word as Kimiko apparently tried to crush his shoulder blade before she abruptly released her grip.

"Is that so?" she said, her every word dripping with poison. "If that's the way it is,  _fine_. I don't need anybody's help either!"

"Wait, Kimiko – " Raimundo was instantly silenced by one terrifying glance. After that, he just let Kimiko storm into the temple.

With the threat of verbal and/or physical abuse gone, the boys were able to speak freely – albeit quietly. And even then, only after they were absolutely sure she was out of earshot. "I do not think Kimiko should train inside the temple. Master Fung would not approve."

Raimundo and Clay glanced at each other before the larger of the two finally sighed and said, "She ain't in there t' train, she's prolly workin' off some steam or…or somethin'."

"Omi, you really need to get some social skills."

"What? What did  _I_ do?"

"Said that you're better than her."

"Implied that th' stuff she does is real easy an' simple."

"Also that if she  _really_  was skilled, then she wouldn't need anybody's help."

"Dismissed alla her trainin' and work as somethin' you could just learn by yerself in a day."

"I said none of those things!" Omi said, aghast.

Raimundo kneeled down and laid an arm around Omi's shoulders. "Dude, when all of this is over, we're gonna need to talk about things you say and how other people take it. For now, ya gotta go apologize." And with a couple of pats, Raimundo pushed Omi towards the doorway of the temple.

The young monk dug his heels in. "I do not even know what to apologize for," he protested. "I did not say those things, and I did not mean to say them!"

"Look, at the very least we can't have bad feelings in the team, y'know? Not now. Soooo…yeah. You need to apologize."

Feeling very much like he was being thrown into the lion's den, Omi eventually complied. Clay and Raimundo watched him tiptoe into the doorway.

"Think he'll make things worse?"

Raimundo sighed. "I'm hoping that's not even possible."

"He  _does_  have a habit of diggin' his spurs inna bronco that's already buckin'."

Raimundo didn't even bother to ask for a translation.

After a few seconds of silence, Clay tried adopting a cheerful expression and said, "Say, while we're waitin', how 'bout I train you fer a bit?"

Oh boy. Treading much more carefully than Omi had, Raimundo said, "It's not like I don't  _want_  to, but…I don't think I'm cut out for your element, dude."

Clay dropped his smile, but thankfully didn't look hurt. More confused. Or uneasy? "Whaddya mean?"

"Well, y'know," Raimundo said, gesturing at his torso with the hope that his hands could do the explaining for him. When Clay didn't respond, he slowly added, "I don't really have your…heft. No offense."

To his surprise, Clay only laughed. "Heck, y'don't hafta worry 'bout that!"

"Yeah? Maybe  _your_  legs can handle like all that jumping 'round and stomping on the ground and stuff. Mine'd probably break. And without all that wei – heft, my attacks're gonna lack your 'oomph.'"

"Buddy, there ain't no reason y'have t' – " For some reason, Clay cut himself short. Raimundo glanced up at his face, but it was hard to read with his hair covering his eyes as usual.

"No reason I have to what?"

There was a silence that wasn't long at all, but still managed to be uncomfortable. Clay rubbed his nose. "No reason ya can't try, right?"

Raimundo raised an eyebrow, but let himself be led to the training dummy without protest. When Clay let go of his shoulders to stand back, he simply stared at the glorified scarecrow. "So what do I do?"

Clay shrugged. "Jus' try what comes natural an' we'll go from there."

With a small grimace, Raimundo tapped a foot on the ground. It failed to do anything. He tried a light kick that scuffed the dirt. The earth didn't respond the way it had before. Encouraged by this display of control he had lacked previously, Raimundo took a deep breath and stomped heavily on the ground.

A large crack stemming from underneath his foot snaked its way forward and toppled the dummy. It also collapsed part of the wall. And, by the sounds of things, it continued down the mountain and caused a rockslide.

Raimundo froze.

"So," Clay finally said, his words treading carefully around the situation, "Somethin' ya should know. If yer gonna stomp, ya gotta be careful where ya stomp. Like near faults, or buildings, or elevated ground. Too much quakin' really ruins structural integrity, y'see."

"Oh," Raimundo said, still staring at where the wall used to be. "That's nice to know. So, uh, how do you  _not_  destroy everything?"

"Don'cha have somethin' of a feel fer th' land? Like…an earth sense…?"

"Uh…I dunno…should I?" Raimundo asked. 'Earth sense?' The ground just felt like the ground. Maybe a little less solid and unmoving than usual, but it was just ground.

"Guess that jus' comes with experience, then," Clay drawled. After a moment, he couldn't help but grin. "Y'know, y'can move now."

Raimundo slowly straightened up, cringing as he did. Nothing else collapsed, which was nice. Still, he didn't want to take too many risks.

"Right, so I reckon ya wanna avoid makin' crevices an' such."

"Look," said Raimundo, spinning on his heels to face Clay. He tried not to sound frustrated. Or disappointed in himself for not maintaining control (after  _all those times_  he learned to keep his impulsiveness in check, after  _becoming leader_ , and he  _still_  was a screw-up). He choked on his breath, but didn't break composure. "Let's face it. I  _can't do this_. It's  _impossible_  for me."

"Actually, I've bin thinkin' along those lines too."

"…What?" Raimundo's face fell. He knew that he just couldn't do it, but to hear  _Clay_  say that to him, just give up on him like that…it felt like his chest was being squeezed.

Clay saw his expression and he took on a panicked face. "What?"

"You thought…I couldn't do it?"

"It's not like that – I mean…" As Raimundo continued to stare, Clay avoided his eyes. "Lemme jus' give ya some tips an' we'll try again, alright?"

"No," said Raimundo, no longer feeling pained but starting to recognize a pattern. "Clay, you've been acting real weird. What's going on? Is something up?"

"Nothin's up." Still not looking straight at him. Scratching the back of his head. "Ferget it. I'm jus' dumb is all."

" _Don't_  say that." Raimundo's hands balled into fists, but he wasn't angry. He was upset, as he would have been if someone else had insulted Clay – but even moreso because it was  _Clay_  insulting Clay. "Don't  _ever_  say that. You're like the smartest guy I know!" At this, Clay finally looked straight at him, in shock. In trepidation? "Just now, you pretty much told me that every time you fight, you gotta think about faults and structural integrity of stuff and I dunno, tectonic plates or whatever! So you don't, like, kill everybody everywhere! You're not dumb, dude."

Clay said nothing, struck speechless for at least a minute. Raimundo's breathing slowed down. He only just realized he had been shouting. Hopefully nobody else overheard. The cowboy coughed and said, "That's nothin' special. Don'cha gotta worry about air currents an' warm'n cold fronts?"

"Yeah. I do. So that makes you at  _least_  as smart as me. And I know I'm not dumb. So that means you're not dumb."

This time, Clay didn't respond. The two just stood there in a gunless Mexican standoff. Raimundo fired the first shot.

"Something's eating you, I can tell. I wanna help you, but I can't if you don't tell me what's up. So  _please_." He stepped forward, hands facing up in a genuine show of welcoming openness. "Let me help."

Clay turned his back on him. At first, Raimundo was worried that he was ignoring him, or worse, that he would turn around with that wide grin of his, maintaining through his teeth that there was absolutely nothing wrong at all. Nothing to talk about. But then, so quiet that he almost didn't hear it, Clay said, "I didn't want anyone t' hate me."

Raimundo wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. Before he could say anything in reply, Clay started to walk towards the temple. Raimundo was almost afraid that he was just going to leave, but then he plopped down on the steps, arms crossed upon his knees. The Brazilian jogged to join him.

The two of them just sat there, listening to nothing, staring beyond what they were seeing. Raimundo waited. Clay sighed.

"After that run-in with Jessie, I got t' thinkin'. We actually used t' be real good buddies."

"Y'mean 'are,' right? You  _are_ good buddies. You two made up or…something like that."

Clay allowed himself a wry smile. "Somethin' like that. But it took ten years, Rai. Ten years of in-fightin' an' hate…she really hated me, y'know? 'Nuff t' leave me behind. Do any o' yer siblin's hate ya?" Raimundo shook his head. He didn't even have to think. He couldn't even imagine it. "Well, it hurts real bad. An' back then, I didn't get it. So when she started doin' all th' Black Vipers stuff, I jus' got angry 'cause I was confused an' hurt."

Leaning over to match his pose, Raimundo said, "Look, I dunno much 'bout what happened and all, but it wasn't your fault."

"No. I get it now. I was showin' her up. So she left me. If I show people up, they'll leave me." Clay took a deep, shuddering breath. "So I won't."

Raimundo folded his hands in front of his chin. "Soooo you had an idea 'bout how to fight or something. But you didn't wanna tell us 'cause you thought we'd hate you…for thinking something we didn't think of? So you were trying not to say it." Clay only nodded, and Raimundo had to struggle to not call the whole thing ridiculous.

"'Sides, if none a' y'all thought of it, it prolly was a dumb idea anyways."

"You're doing it again. I  _told_  you not to talk like that."

"Sorry," Clay mumbled. Raimundo just rubbed his face and sighed.

"What were you even trying to do? Make us think you're stupid? I  _know_  you, dude. You're okay with a lotta stuff, but even  _you_  don't like people thinking you're some idiot."

"I'd rather be an idiot than be alone."

The sheer sincerity of that sentence caused Raimundo to look up. But Clay was avoiding his eyes again. His mind searched for something to say to make all of this better. It came up with nothing.

"So yeah. That's it. We're done now, right?"

" _No_ ," Raimundo said, grabbing Clay's arm when he tried to get up.

"Look, I'm fine with…this." And the worst part was, he completely meant it. "There's no problem. I don't wanna talk 'bout this anymore."

Raimundo didn't let go. His face was almost pleading. "You can't  _limit_ yourself like this!" Clay easily shook his arm out of the weak grip and started walking. Not walking anywhere in particular, just walking away. Raimundo immediately jumped up and followed. "You can't – that's not – "

"Conversation's  _over_ , Rai."

"But we're your  _friends!_  We'd never – "

"You did."

Raimundo stopped. After a moment, Clay did too. "Sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said that."

Memories appeared unbidden in Raimundo's mind. His anger. His temptation. His betrayal. "…You think that's  _your_  fault?"

Clay still didn't turn around. His shoulders sagged. "I jus' thought…maybe…if I had…"

"It doesn't matter." Shaking away the memories, Raimundo just walked up and clapped a hand on Clay's shoulder. "What happened, happened. So, y'know, who cares about what-ifs, alright? Besides, it's nobody's fault but mine. I was…a real idiot."

"But – "

"Hold up, I'm not done." Clay looked like he was going to continue to protest, but thankfully he just shut his mouth. "So, y'know, friends fight. And sometimes they'll stay friends and sometimes…they won't. But if someone feels like they gotta change themselves to keep a friend, well…maybe it's the friend that's awful. Not you." Raimundo took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm sorry. Please don't think that I'll leave you just 'cause you know things I don't."

The two of them just stood close together in the middle of the training grounds for a few, silent minutes. A shard of pottery slid off the roof and clicked against the ground.

"I guess I actually was kinda stupid," Clay said, "tryin' t' be stupid."

"Yeah, that was pretty stupid," Raimundo chuckled. "But hey, I'll be the smart one whenever you're being all stupid. So when I'm stupid, you be smart, okay?"

"Deal."

They shook on it, and it was as though a pressure had released, somewhere. As they released grips, Clay couldn't help but laugh that surprisingly soft laugh of his, and Raimundo joined in with a snigger, because sometimes things turn out so well that you can't help but laugh at how worried you were that they wouldn't.

"Y'know," Raimundo said as they went back to waiting for the others, "you never told me your idea."

 


	4. Chapter 4

The temple was not usually dark. It did not have lightbulbs, (which Kimiko and Raimundo had complained about when they first arrived) but it had windows that let in the light of the sun. And when the moon was up, there were lanterns and candles. Which weren't nearly as bright as lightbulbs (or so Omi had heard), but at least they let you see where you were going.

The entrance hall of the temple was dark. All of the lanterns were blown out. And although Omi had grown up used to walking around in dim lighting, he realized it would be dangerous for him to simply walk around here. The light coming through the entrance did not even extend halfway down the hall, as though the gloom was an impenetrable wall.

Omi had never been afraid of the dark. The dark was no obstacle to him at all. It was what he found in the dark that was scary. Like squirrels, or girls who had crushed his shoulder the last time he had seen them. But he understood that turning back was not a good option either, so he proceeded on, dots glowing on his forehead almost as an afterthought.

Kimiko wasn't in the entrance hall. Nor was she in any of the nearby meditation rooms, or the dining hall, or the kitchen, all of which were dark as well. Omi eventually found her sitting in the corner of the library, which seemed the darkest of all. He would have passed her over entirely had she not called out, "Who's there?"

"It is I," Omi replied, his dots eventually shining down on Kimiko. She winced and put an arm over her eyes. There were bruises forming on her knees, because not everybody was so fortunate as to have a glowing forehead. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she scowled.

"Whaddya want? If you're gonna tell me to come back out, you might as well turn around."

In this small corner of the library, filled with more dust than books, Omi hesitated. The expression on Kimiko's face was always the expression he associated with very angry punches, which usually came after he said something. He was half-tempted – no,  _fully_  tempted to say nothing and just leave before anything bad happened to things other than his still-stinging shoulder. Instead, he bowed his head.

"I have come because Raimundo told me to apologize."

"Did he now." Kimiko's tone did not worry Omi, but only because he was preoccupied with other worries. He continued on.

"Yes. I am most sorry for what I have said. I did not mean to upset you."

Kimiko only rested her chin on her knees. Even as Omi straightened up, expecting a response, she said nothing. The light from Omi's head only cast shadows on her face, making her expression unknowable. When the silence had stretched on long enough, the short monk shifted his feet and said, "Ah…did you hear me…?"

"Yeah." Kimiko's voice was muffled, but only slightly. "You can leave now."

"Well, I was hoping that you would be leaving with me. I believe that is what the others were hoping as well."

"Too bad."

Omi liked to think of himself as an understanding person. Granted, he  _always_  liked to think of himself with every good quality imaginable, but it was true that he at least tried to see the good in every situation and in everybody. But his disciplined lifestyle made him unable to tolerate certain things. Such as people shirking their duties.

Now crossing his arms, forgetting any previous fear, dropping all pretense of an apologetic demeanor, Omi said, "I must say, Kimiko, this is  _highly_  irresponsible of you. To walk out of a training session is already most disrespectful, but to then – "

When Kimiko's head snapped up, eyes brimming with liquid fury, Omi swallowed his words. And when she stood up, back straight and shoulders squared, so that she loomed over him, he took a step back. "Oh, you wanna talk  _disrespectful_ , huh? You could stand to look in the mirror, Omi – you're the  _perfect_  definition of 'disrespectful!'"

Omi's chiding bravado was sucked away and replaced with a mixture of confusion, self-doubt, and indignation. Never a good combination. Unsure if he was trying to ask a question or state a fact, Omi said, "I do not understand – "

"Yeah, you  _don't!"_ she shouted, emphasizing the exclamation by poking a finger at Omi's head. "And  _that's_  what's so  _frustrating!_ " The air itself responded to Kimiko's outburst, pulsing outward and stirring up dust. Omi had to take another step back to steady himself against the wind. When it died down, he saw that Kimiko had turned her back to him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know that you don't mean anything. You've never even  _seen_  a girl before I came here. And two years ago, I could tolerate it…but that was two years ago. I can't take it anymore."

"Take…what, exactly?"

Omi's suspicions that this might have not been the right thing to say only rose when Kimiko didn't even turn to acknowledge his question. The dust started to settle, and he tried not to sneeze.

"…I can't take you singling me out all the time."

As though that one sentence had taken all of her energy to say, Kimiko slumped, leaning her head on the nearby shelves. Her hands unclenched. She hadn't even realized she was clenching them. Her voice getting even quieter, almost a whisper, she continued, "For being…a girl."

Omi's indignation vanished, but his confusion only intensified. However, he knew that he was somehow the source of Kimiko's strife, and although he was not quite sure whether he could justifiably be blamed, he knew that those feelings of pain were  _there_. And that's all that mattered.

"Is this about what I had said to you outside?" he asked, stepping closer. Shadows moved wildly as he did so, away from Kimiko as he bathed her back in light. "I assure you, it has nothing to do with you being a girl."

Kimiko finally glanced at him, but it was only a small tilt of the head. Omi wasn't sure whether this meant he was moving in the right direction or not. "Oh yeah? What  _does_  it have to do with, then?"

"You see," Omi said, deciding to be optimistic, "I was not saying that you were worse than me. I was only saying that I was better than you!" He paused as soon as he said this. For some reason, this did not sound as good out loud as it did in his head.

"What about the others?" Kimiko asked, still not turning around. "Are you better than  _them_?"

If she had asked him a week ago, Omi would have immediately said yes. It would have seemed so simple a question. He was the youngest of the four, but he was also the most skilled. They all had skills of their own, of course, but those were skills that didn't  _matter_ , even if they were interesting in their novelty. Technology did not trump years of intense training. Whittling and soccer and surfing did not replace fighting skills. It was just natural that the other monks were  _inferior_. Although he had never thought of it as that. He just thought of it as him being  _better_.

But then Raimundo became leader and he had been upset, sure, because who wouldn't be after being raised to believe that  _this_  was supposed to be for  _him,_ the culmination of his work, his accomplishments, his  _life_. When he had turned from  _the_  Chosen One to  _a_  Chosen One, he had only managed to continue on with the thought that he would at least be the  _leader_  of the Chosen Ones.

And then Raimundo became leader and there was nothing left.

And at the same time, he realized that he had been wrong all along. That he had been foolish to judge a person's worth by only fighting prowess and titles. That it was wrong to think that his friends' skills were worthless just because he had never found much use for them. And, in fact, it was just wrong to think of human beings in terms of worth in the first place. Raimundo wasn't made a worthier person just by becoming leader – it was just that he was he was the most worthy for the  _position_ of leader. And Omi's own fighting prowess didn't make him any worthier than anybody else. And that he failed in becoming leader didn't make him less worthy either. In that moment, Omi had felt that all of his life had been leading to this realization.

He was still in the middle of struggling with it, though. It felt as though he  _knew_  what he had realized, but he couldn't put it into the words that he needed in order to know what he was thinking. And now Kimiko was asking him to put the thoughts that he had no words for into words.

"When I say that I am better than someone, I do not mean that I am  _better_  than them, but that I am  _better_ …ah…" Omi rubbed his head. That didn't sound right either. "You see…I am not better than you, but I am better at fighting!" Close enough.

Kimiko turned slightly, half her face shrouded in shadow. From what Omi could see, her expression wasn't anger at all, but…something more morose. "So…why can you fight better than Clay?"

"That is  _very_  easy to answer. Clay is large and slow, while I am smaller and faster. Even if he catches me with his rope, I have ways of getting out of it."

"Why can you fight better than Raimundo?"

"Because although he has improved greatly since his arrival, he is still rather undisciplined. I also happen to have years of training and experience. Any sort of crafty trickery he may try can likely be countered by my tiger instincts."

"And why can you fight better than me?"

"Because you're a – "

He stopped, but the unsaid word still drifted in the air between them, twisting grotesquely in its non-existence. Kimiko's eyes, surprisingly enough, did not flare. Her face did not even twitch.

"Go ahead. Say it."

Omi stayed silent.

" _Say it!_ " She whirled around, staring the young boy down, eyes filled with tears and a strange sort of desperation. Her voice echoed within the library walls until it was only a sad remnant of what it once was – and then it wasn't even that. "It's because I'm a girl. It's because I'm  _naturally_  weak. I'm not  _meant_  for fighting. I should be at home, where I learn how to stay there the rest of my life, cleaning up after the  _men_  while  _they_ go out and actually  _do something_. Women should be seen, not heard. They shouldn't run or they'll get _hurt_. I'll  _never_  be able to compete against a guy because girls just can't  _compete_  against guys. When a guy makes a mistake, it's 'cause mistakes happen but when a  _girl_  makes a mistake, it's 'cause she's a  _girl_ , of  _course_  she couldn't do it, she shouldn't have even  _tried_."

The sheer emotion in her words overwhelmed Omi, engulfed and confused him, muddled his thoughts. She spoke with a voice that wasn't hers, the voice of past memories. Around this voice, Omi's sympathy and his beliefs crashed together in a violent hurricane. He felt the bitterness and pain in that voice, simmering anger and resentment and resigned acceptance and uncontrollable resistance and the guilt of being unable to prove people wrong. He felt it and he understood and at the same time he didn't because…well…

…Wasn't it true? That girls and boys were different, they grew up different, were suited for different things?

"Kimiko, I know that it is hard to accept, but one must be aware of the things they simply cannot do."

In the dim light, Kimiko narrowed her eyes. She wiped at her tears, careful to use her hands rather than her sleeve. "I knew you couldn't understand."

"Perhaps if we talked more – "

"No. You  _can't_ understand." She looked away, her eyes dully reflecting the light. "You're too young."

" _What!_ " Omi's hurricane of contrasting feelings suddenly fused together and turned into outright fury. "How can you  _say_  that? I'm not that much younger than you! And in any case, being young does not affect my ability to understand!" The light emitting from his dots shook around as he animatedly explained his point with his arms. "I have experienced things that many children my age will never experience! I have trained my entire life to fight for the balance of good and evil! I have fought Wuya, Chase Young,  _and_  Hannibal Bean, and at one point,  _I was turned into a cat!_  My age is  _irrelevant!_  To disregard the sum of my experience based on my  _age_ is…is…"

"Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it."

Omi's arms dropped to his sides once more. And as he stared at Kimiko, everything seemed clear.

It _had_  been about gender all along. He only just convinced himself that it wasn't.

The thought that he was not in control of his own thoughts and beliefs was unnerving. What else did he just take for granted without question? Which "facts" were true and which ones were the products of something sinister within him? It seemed he would have to schedule a very long meditation upon this new realization on top of the other realization.

Kimiko was looking at him again, hugging herself while looking defiant while looking unsure about how he was going to react. And the worst part of it was that he  _still_  didn't understand, and he knew it. He could probably never fully understand. Get the idea, yes, but never understand.

"I'm sorry," he said, because it was the first thing he could think to say. The second thing was, "You are very strong and smart. I mean that from the very ends of my heart."

Kimiko gave him a small, wan smile. "Thanks, but you don't need to sweet talk me back out. I…I already know I can't do it on my own. I'm not…good enough."

And with that, she strode past him, hand trailing on the shelves. Omi watched her get engulfed in the darkness, trying to figure out what to say. After a moment, Kimiko called back, "C'mon, Omi, I can't make my  _own_  light anymore." And so he hurried ahead, careful not to trip as his dots only illuminated a small area in front of his feet.

The two of them were soon out of the stiflingly dark library and as they headed down the shadowed hallways, Omi said, "You know, you have great compassion."

Kimiko glanced down at him, mouth quirked in a skeptical grimace. "I guess…?"

"And you are very light and acrobatic! That requires stamina, as well as very developed muscles. And you are most perceptive about those around you. I believe that is called being a 'person of the people?'"

"People person," Kimiko corrected, struggling to hold back a genuine smile, the first he had seen on her today. He felt a grin spread on his face as well and pressed on.

"You are a very good problem solver and you pursue what is unknown to you. And you are very knowledgeable about technology!"

"Aw c'mon." Kimiko waved a hand and modestly looked away. "That's not so special."

"Perhaps, but  _Raimundo_  couldn't tell me how cameras worked.  _He_  did not explain about properties of light and lenses and…stuff!" Honestly, the vocabulary that Kimiko had used flew right over Omi's head. But the way her eyes lit up whenever she explained something just made her radiate pure, contagious enthusiasm. Omi loved the way she loved technology and gadgets and her infinite patience when he asked what this was, how that worked, how any of these were possible without magic. And it was important for her to know about this, about everything he was saying. Because…because…

Omi held on to Kimiko's sleeve, forcing her to stop walking. "You can do so many things, and know so many things…so you are not a failure if you need help to do this one thing.

"And in any case," he continued, tightening his grip, talking a little faster, "I need your help as well. S-so if you think you're a failure, then…then we can be failures together."

The hard part was done. Omi let go of Kimiko and just stared downward, fighting off the sense of shame that he knew he really shouldn't feel. Because he could do things and knew things too and there wasn't any shame in being unable to do or know  _everything_ …

But even when he knew something it didn't change how he felt.

Kimiko knelt down and wrapped her arms around him. And they stayed that way for what felt like a long time, heads on resting on shoulders, staying silent because words would just be noise. And with a final squeeze, she let go. Then with a faint smile, she said, "You're afraid of getting burned."

Omi instinctively prickled at the thought but once again swallowed down what he knew to be the wrong reaction. "How do you know?"

"You flinch when you try it, and when you flinch, you lose control. Then you set fire to yourself. Also," Kimiko added with a kind smirk, "you didn't try to relight the lanterns when you came in."

"Oh."

Kimiko patted Omi on the shoulder twice, then got on her feet and straightened up. "It's easy to lose focus when you're worried about getting burned. You don't feel like you can control it, right? At least not as well as with the Cat's Eye Draco."

"Fire is much more wild than water," Omi admitted. "It feels like it is fighting out of my grasp…"

Arms akimbo, Kimiko tried her best drillmaster stare. "First lesson:  _you_  are in control. You'll only screw up if you  _think_  you're screwing up, and you'll only burn yourself if you  _think_  you will. Be confident, alright?" Omi's expression looked much too serious and uncertain. On instinct, Kimiko affectionately rubbed the top of his head, as though ruffling non-existent hair. "Trust me, if you don't want to burn something, you  _won't_. Not as long as you trust yourself. Okay?"

"If you say so," Omi replied, trying not to look at his singed sleeves.

"Look, let's try it out. Why don't you just make a small flame in your hand? Just a little one – you don't even have to throw it."

"Like this?" Holding out an open hand, Omi flinched as a spark ignited into a flame that floated above his palm. Kimiko nodded and raised a hand of her own. At first, Omi wasn't sure what she was doing, but when she started to move her neatly manicured nails to the fire, ( _the burning fire the raging fire the ravenous fire hungry for anything it could consume)_ he instantly wrenched his hand away, closing it in a fist and snuffing out the flame.

"What are you doing?" he demanded with a quaver. Kimiko had flinched her hand away when Omi made his sudden movement, but she looked calm. Grim, even, as though she had expected this to happen.

"You have to see that you're in control, Omi. You can make it so the fire keeps going without hurting me." With kind hands, she gently reached for Omi's arm, but he stepped back. With a sigh that was more morose than exasperated, Kimiko said, "Look. You don't want to burn me, right?"

"No, I  _don't_! That is why I moved away from you!"

"If you don't want to burn me, then you won't burn me. You don't have to be afraid, okay? You're the one with the reins."

Still, Omi hesitated. Because it was one thing to say that he was in control, but it was another to  _plunge your hand into an open flame_. Seeing the concern on his face, Kimiko tried to smile. "You don't have to worry about me. I've handled burns before. In any case, I trust you. So let's try again, okay?"

This time, when Kimiko reached out, he didn't pull away. His arm was limp as she turned his hand over, and it remained so even as he ignited the air with only a thought. Kimiko kept a grip on his wrist, as though worried he would pull away again and thus ruin this exercise of control and trust. And to be fair, he probably would.

When Kimiko started reaching towards the flame again, Omi turned his head away. "You have to look," she said. "If you can't see it, then it's not going to work." And that made an unfortunate amount of sense, so Omi stared at his hand and the flame and Kimiko's hand, forcing his eyes to stay open.

His hand started to tense, which caused the flame to flicker. Kimiko's was getting close, closer and closer, much too close,  _way_  too close, and he  _didn't_  want to burn her, he really didn't, and he  _wasn't going to let it happen._

Kimiko slid her hand into the flame, except the flame wasn't where it was. It curved around her hand instead, dodging it by burning at an impossible angle. Omi couldn't help but grin, light flickering in his eyes, as he saw the ribbon of fire twist away. Kimiko let go of his wrist and just moved her hand around and they watched as the flame danced around it, ducking and weaving, even slipping through her fingers once the two of them got bold enough to try something riskier.

And then Kimiko finally pulled her hand away, warm but unscathed. Omi no longer had a look of wary suspicion and fear but one of thankful confidence. Kimiko stood back and smiled. "See? It's okay. Sure, you have to be careful, but it's not like it's some wild beast."

Omi let the ribbon of fire make a few loops in the air before allowing it to burn out. "Fire…is a lot more like water than I thought."

"I'll take your word for it. So Omi, do you mind…?" Kimiko jabbed a finger towards the dark lanterns. Instantly getting the idea, Omi sent up a flare that zoomed around and lit the wicks. The gloom of the hall lifted and the temple once again took on the warm, calming atmosphere that the monks were used to. The gloom had lifted from the minds of the two monks as well, and they walked through the temple with cheerful chatter peppered with some fire-related advice from Kimiko. The question of whether their chi would get back in order was still in their minds, but it seemed almost an insignificant problem now. Something to focus on later.

When Omi and Kimiko exited the temple, they didn't exactly find Clay and Raimundo waiting for them. The two boys were still outside, but they were certainly more focused on training dummies than the door. As the newly-emerged monks descended the stairs, Raimundo made a diving elbow drop onto the ground, which didn't stop his descent but instead yielded to his weight. In front of him, the ground under the dummy was pushed up, as though pivoting on a fulcrum, and the dummy itself catapulted all the way across the temple grounds, where it subsequently bounced off a wall.

"I see you guys got some training done," Kimiko said, quirking an eyebrow at the section of earth that now looked like a seesaw. Clay pulled Raimundo out of the deep hole he had made. Once he was back on ground level, the Brazilian approached the other two, green eyes flashing with excitement.

"Oh, you don't even  _know_ , I just thought of all these  _cool moves_  I can do, right? Like that thing I just did – okay wait, sorry, almost forgot." And here, Raimundo ran back towards Clay, who had stayed back near the improvised seesaw. Pushing the cowboy from behind, Raimundo said, "Our buddy Clay's got something to say." And with two claps on his shoulders, he gave the floor over to the quiet Texan. Omi and Kimiko turned their gazes towards him.

He shuffled his feet and coughed, as though waiting for Raimundo to take the floor back, but when it was clear that wasn't happening, he squared his shoulders and said, "We haven't been trainin' th' right way. I think."

"No 'I think' about it, he  _really_  nailed this." The juxtaposition between Raimundo's beaming face and Clay's more didactic expression only made the pitch odder. It was sort of like the 'Good Cop Bad Cop' duo, but instead of cops, they were salesmen and instead of good and bad, they were…well, maybe that still worked out.

Omi looked up at Clay, his face starting to form the Look again. "Does that mean…my manner of teaching was not helpful?"

"Parts of it were," Clay replied in an uncomfortably honest tone. "But we were thinkin' 'bout this whole thing th' wrong way."

"Yeah, it's gonna  _blow your mind_." In second-hand embarrassment, Clay shoved Raimundo off of his shoulder. Kimiko, not one with patience for a good build-up, just rolled her eyes.

"Al _right_  already, lay it on us. What's this 'mind-blowing solution' or whatever?"

"Y'see…" Clay sniffed in the way that a car mechanic did before laying down the bill. "We were all hung up on fightin' like each other when we already know how to fight. An' th' problem with tryin' t' fight like each other is we've all got diff'rent body types, weights, muscle memory, all that stuff. So th' more efficient way would prolly be t' jus' fight like us. Only, y'know." He shrugged. "After learnin' what's important t' know fer th' diff'rent element."

"Like 'don't make fissures,'" Raimundo added, still beaming widely as he glanced at the giant seesaw sticking out of the ground.

Both Omi and Kimiko were silent for a moment. Clay watched them uneasily.

"Ah, I see! So with your large physique and lack of training, you obviously would not be able to perform  _my_  moves! So  _that_  is what you mean." There was no shoddily hidden jealousy or resentment on Omi's part. Just an enthusiastic understanding.

"That's…surprisingly simple," Kimiko said, raising a hand to her chin. Her expression was thoughtfully impressed.

"Simple solutions," Raimundo said, giving Clay a nudge. "Just what you'd expect from a simple guy like – wait that doesn't sound right."

Before Raimundo could think of a better way to word his thought, Omi stepped towards Clay with open arms and an eager face. "Shall we start over then? If we have gotten off on the wrong foot, I would very much like to get on the right one."

Clay grinned. It was a grin full of relief and happiness and thankfulness that the past hadn't yet repeated. But mostly it was a grin full of playful smugness directed towards Raimundo. "Yeah, sure. But I reckon  _someone_ 's gotta get that dummy back."

Raimundo blinked, then turned his head towards where the training dummy had fallen – all the way on the other side of the temple grounds. With a sigh that was laden with the burden of the universe itself, he said, " _Fine_."

 


	5. Chapter 5

"I hope you kids know that Master Fung doesn't appreciate all the broken pots." Despite keeping his eyes focused straight ahead, Dojo managed to give off the impression that he was giving them a disapproving glare.

"We needed them for training," Raimundo maintained. And it was true, at least technically.

"Yeah, well, try using something less  _fragile_ , hm?"

His large serpentine body twisted its way down to the ground and landed next to the familiar wall surrounding Jack's familiar house. The fact that it had become so familiar was bizarre to Dojo once he thought about it. They could have probably just rung the doorbell and Jack's mom would have let them in with offers of cookies or something. Except it was close to midnight, so instead of being greeted with cookies, they would probably be greeted with the police.

All four monks easily jumped the wall. "You sure you guys can handle this?" Dojo suddenly called out, tapping his claws together.

Clay glanced down from the top of the wall and met Dojo's bright eyes. They glowed with concern. He tried to shoot down a grin. "Don' worry, lil buddy. If we need some help, we'll give y'all a holler."

"Y-yeah, of course! Everything's gonna be fine!" Seeing that Dojo was really talking more to himself rather than giving encouraging support, the monks jumped down the other side of the wall. Even as they moved quietly towards the roof, they could still faintly hear Dojo's rambling platitudes, which finally ended when he figured out that they had already left.

There were Jack-bots patrolling the yard. Raimundo peered into the skylight and saw a Jack-bot roaming the hall as well. Didn't Jack's parents ever complain about the noise?

"Alright," he said in a low whisper, leaning towards the others. "Let's try to avoid fights if we can. Best case scenario, we're in and out before anybody finds out. It'd be nice if we got all our Wu back, but the Sun Chi Lantern's top priority so if we get caught, don't get greedy. If someone gets the Lantern and we're in a hard spot, we're  _leaving_. We can get the rest later. Got it?"

The team responded with curt nods. Raimundo directed a particularly long stare at Omi, brow furrowed in a concerned squint, before turning back to the skylight. Usually, skylights didn't open. But usually, burglars weren't monks armed with freaky elemental powers and weird magical objects. "Omi, you think you can make, like, a welding torch kinda flame?"

"Thin and hot," Kimiko clarified. After a few tries, Omi got the idea. His finger engulfed in blue flame, he started heating up the edges of the window. In the meantime, Raimundo tossed the Lotus Twister to Clay.

"Window down that way," he said, jabbing a thumb towards the front of the Spicer manor. "It's small, but see if you can open it."

Clay's arm stretched over the side of the roof and felt its way down to the glass. When he stumbled, his balance failing him, Raimundo wrapped his arms around his waist and tried to hold him up. Clay's rubbery fingers squeezed under the window before sliding it up, and his arm continued up the wall and on the ceiling until it reached the skylight.

When Omi finally welded through the glass, it succumbed to the laws of gravity right into Clay's hand. He fumbled with the added weight, accidentally dropped it, and then caught it again. Kimiko let out the breath she had held in and as Clay's arm snapped back to normal length, she lightly slapped him on the shoulder. "Jeez, I almost had a heart attack."

"Sorry, 'catchin' things I can't see' ain't one of my strong suits," Clay replied, setting the pane of glass on the roof. Omi was already through the window and crawling on the ceiling. Kimiko and Raimundo, who never particularly wanted to learn how to crawl on walls (although they were certainly considering it now), just dropped lightly to the floor and followed the youngest monk down the stairs. Clay didn't trust himself to be able to land quietly, given his girth, and so instead used the Lotus Twister to stretch his feet down. He hastily made for the stairs, catching up to his friends just as a Jack-bot puttered by on its programmed patrol.

The journey to the basement was uneventful. Apparently, for all of Jack's bragging, he did not put much effort into the 'I' part of his robots' A.I. They ignored everything that wasn't in their field of vision. And their field of vision happened to be rather narrow. Even the guard stationed at the front of the basement door was easily circumvented by edging along the wall to the door behind it, as apparently Jack built his robots with no peripheral vision. It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.

At the head of the stairs, Clay quietly shut the door at the still-oblivious guard's back and Kimiko reached a hand out to search for a light switch. She stopped herself. There was the faint, telltale hum in the air. She peered over the railing and under where the wall turned into ceiling and saw two pairs of red eyes. "Be right back," she whispered to the boys, and before anybody could protest, she was already creeping down the stairs.

Nobody could see anything in the dark stairwell; there hadn't been enough time for their eyes to adjust. Omi almost called out, but thought better of it, and the three boys were left in silence that was thick enough to choke on.

The silence was sliced apart by two sharp sounds of rending metal. A few seconds later, Kimiko called out, "Okay turn on the lights."

Clay covered his eyes before flicking the switch, and so was able to go down the stairs faster than the other two, who were left blinking in the brightness. He landed heavily at the foot of the stairs and stopped, tipping his hat upwards. Jack's basement had always been slightly cluttered, but now it was…slightly messier, he supposed. Kimiko stood in the middle of bits and pieces of robot parts, which were differentiated from all the other bits and pieces of robot parts only because they happened to be dented and sparking. Clay gave an appreciative whistle just as Raimundo and Omi stumbled down the stairs.

"Less whistling, more searching," Kimiko snapped, tiptoeing her way around disembodied robot parts to a cabinet in the corner. She found herself disappointed when she threw it open. "Does anybody know where Jack usually keeps his Wu?"

Omi hopped onto the drab table that sat in the middle of the room. "I often just find them lying out in the open. But it appears that Jack has put them away somewhere else."

"You'd think an  _evil boy genius_  would be more organized," Raimundo muttered as he trailed his way through the sea of metal.

"You're one to talk." Kimiko gave a teasing smirk before she started wandering the shelves. Raimundo responded by kicking away something with wires all over it as he rolled his eyes, but smiled in agreement with her.

Clay checked the cabinet again, as he was the type of person who needed to jiggle the doorknob three times  _himself_  before being convinced that the door was locked – and even then he'd fret about it for the rest of the day. "So I hate t' be a debbie downer, but d'ya reckon Jack's keepin' his stash someplace else?"

In the only open and relatively clear space, Omi popped out of a jet's cockpit. "He  _does_  have a safe…"

"Yeah, where is it?"

Omi shifted uncomfortably. "In his room."

As one, the four monks turned their heads to the ceiling. And as though they had rehearsed beforehand, they all let out a sigh thicker than Paradise Lost.

"Well," said Raimundo, leaning against a hanging torso, "maybe Jack's as heavy a sleeper as his junky robots are dumb."

And then the basement door slammed open. The voice of Jack Spicer soon followed. "If you're burglars," said the redhead, trying not to yawn, "could you not, uh, burgle? I don't want to vaporize you…or some – oh."

Jack's expression, once he had gone halfway down the stairs and could now clearly see the intruders, was not one of shock or fear but one of annoyance. And a hint of embarrassment at facing his archenemies in his pajamas. "Do you guys  _have_  to do this? At  _midnight_?"

"Time zones, dude. It's lunchtime back in China."

"Speakin' of lunch, wouldja mind savin' us a buncha trouble an' tell us where y'all stashed th' Wu?"

Leaning over the railing, Jack rubbed at his forehead and moaned. "Do you really think I'd just  _leave_  them out in the open here? Of  _course_  they're in my safe. Wait." He tried to straighten up but only managed to lean his head in his arms. "I think I need coffee."

While Jack was distracted by his own sleep deprivation, Omi took the opportunity to jump and propel himself up the stairs, trailing flames in his wake. Jack, who wasn't quite used to the sight of small children flying straight at him despite everything he had experienced already, screeched and fell over. He recovered just in time for the other three monks to jump over him as they tried to keep up with Omi as best as they could. Jack, being the type to unironically hang up 'Keep Out' signs on his bedroom door, made a desperate pursuit, his socks scrabbling on the smooth stairs. But it was clear that he couldn't stop their ascent. Luckily, (or unluckily?) his Jack-bots were already swarming the head of the stairs.

"Jack-bots!" At last, he got to his feet. Jack took the opportunity to make a commanding gesture, although nobody was looking in the first place. "Uh, do the thing!"

To the monks' dismay, they did the thing. Omi was already at the top of the stairs when the Jack-bots started to assemble themselves, but he couldn't attack the whirling robots fast enough to do anything. When the rest of his friends joined him, the giant robot had set its feet on the floor. And its head through the ceiling.

Jack, still in the middle of the stairs, winced at the sound of a destroyed ceiling. He continued to wince when the weight collapsed the floor, mostly because everybody, including him, fell back down to the basement.

There was a momentary truce as everybody decided to not move for a while. Jack pricked his ears for a sound other than crumbling debris and heard nothing. Which meant that his mom was still asleep,  _phew_. With a groan, Jack managed to find something to support him as he stood on shaky legs. "So…that's a  _bit_  of a flaw…"

To his consternation, the monks jumped onto their feet as though they  _didn't_  just fall down a floor and onto concrete and bits of wood. Jack fumbled around and found his heli-pack. Hopefully, his spine could handle a little flying. "Get them!" he shouted, making a few false starts into the air before finally managing to go up the non-existent stairs. "Without bringing my house down," he clarified.

As he glanced down the hole in the floor, partially to judge the fight, partially to judge all the damage he'd have to fix, he couldn't help but notice that there was one less loser monk than usual…

A large hole opened up underneath the feet of the Jack-bot conglomerate, from which Raimundo launched himself, the concrete floor twisting around him in a double helix. As the giant robot sank, the twisting concrete dug into its back, leaving some rather horrible gashes that made Jack squeak with concern. The squeak turned into a dismal sigh when the concrete pillars pierced the floor above it. He really should take these fights outside.

Before Raimundo even landed, Clay took the opportunity to engulf his arms in water and slam his hands on the ground. Jagged chunks of ice spread out from the point of impact, growing around the hole that the Jack-bot conglomerate now found itself stuck in. As it struggled, encased in an impromptu iceberg, the monks used it as a convenient platform to get to the first floor.

"Oh my  _gooooood_." Jack's voice dug its heels everybody's ears, as though to make it known just how exasperated he was by being as drawn out as possible. He gestured at the new adornments to his house with an intense frown. "Can we  _not_."

"What do you think  _we_  have to deal with, huh?" Kimiko shot back.

"Y'know, if you just hand over the Wu, we'll leave."

Jack put his hands to his cheeks with an exaggerated flair. His eyes sparkled with sarcastic wonder. "Oh gosh,  _really?_  Golly gee, how could I even think about denying this  _totally fair deal?_ My answer is…SNEAK ATTACK!"

The group barely had a few seconds to think before a giant robot hand broke through the floor beneath them. This time, Omi simply jetted for the stairs. Kimiko and Raimundo jumped to a more stable part of the floor, and Clay went for a running start and made a very ungraceful leap. The giant robot, seeing that it had failed to do much of anything, started to pull itself through the hole. This only served to make the hallway walls crack and shudder. Jack gave out another shriek and flew up to the robot's head, waving his arms frantically. "Okay, okay, unassemble!  _Unassemble_!"

"Get to his room already!" Raimundo bellowed, sprinting for the stairs and gesturing for Omi to keep going.

Jack whirled around just in time to see Clay starting up the stairs. "Woah woah woah, hey, don't – " Of course, nobody listened. He wasn't sure why he even tried. Instead of pelting useless words at his enemies, Jack pursued them, hoping to beat them to his room, or at the least catch up.

Seeing Omi already kicking down his door, Jack made an unimpressive yelp and gave his heli-pack an extra burst of speed. He was able to pass Clay, but when he tried to overtake Kimiko, she launched balls of air at both spinning blades. Jack wobbled in the air before bouncing off the side of the wall. A few seconds later, Clay stumbled right into him, and the two tumbled to the floor, their momentum carrying them into both Kimiko and Raimundo. The mass of tangled people rolled right into Jack's room, trailing groans in its wake. All of them stopped just in time for Omi to crack Jack's safe (which was a generous way of putting it, as Jack still hadn't changed the combination) and hold aloft his prize.

"A- _ha_!" The large bag of Wu was almost bigger than him, but he was still able to hold it up with pride. It swayed with its weight. "I am  _victorious!_ "

Somewhere under the pile of monks, Jack extracted an arm and grabbed the bottom of the bag. "Not so fast, dweeb," he said, although because his head was somewhere under Clay's torso, it sounded more like "Nuffo fass, dwwb." The bag of Wu started to glow as Jack clawed at the floor in his attempts to pull himself out from under the human pile. He spat out carpet gunk and dust bunnies.

"Very well, Jack," said Omi, either not noticing Jack's humiliating position or simply ignoring it. "I challenge you to a Xiaolin – "

The challenge was quite jarringly interrupted by a giant head coming through the floor. It scattered the people in Jack's room, and scattered the Wu inside the bag as well. The giant robot watched impassively as several bodies landed in different places. Jack conveniently landed on his bed.

"I  _told_  you to  _disassemble!_ " he reprimanded as the Crystal Glasses hit him on the head. The Xiaolin monks, having been tossed around way too many times in one evening, struggled to their feet. The Silk Spitter knocked Clay in the face. "Was that really so much to ask for?  _Look at my room!_ "

"Does  _anybody_  see the Sun Chi Lantern?" Raimundo called out as Omi caught the Golden Tiger Claws and tossed them in the bag.

"Ugh. Whatever. While you're up here, just laser these guys…or something." With that lackluster order, Jack leapt off the bed and started picking up whatever he could carry.

The robot's head turned to aim at Clay, who immediately used to Silk Spitter to web up its eyes in an attempt to confuse it. He had been working under the assumption that by 'lasers,' Jack meant 'laser eyes.' As two panels on both sides of the head opened up to reveal laser guns, Clay realized that his assumption was wrong.

As the laser guns hummed, ready to fry him, the only thing Clay could think to say was, "Oh."

A few seconds later, Kimiko flipped into the air, using jets of air to propel herself into a faster spin, and drove an axe kick deep into the top of the robot's head, which gave in like aluminum foil. Landing off to the side, Kimiko sent another burst of wind that pushed the head off its shoulders and through the far wall, eliciting another pained scream from Jack as it fell two stories and landed in his mom's petunias.

"Thanks," said Clay, sending an apologetic grin her way.

"You really should start dodging these lasers," Kimiko replied with a well-meaning smirk.

In the meantime, Jack had started berating his Jack-bots once more, and they  _finally_  followed his orders to disassemble. Jack-bots were now pouring through the hole in the floor in droves, flooding the room. It was starting to get uncomfortably crowded. Clay found that the Jack-bots weren't really attacking him, rather, they were pressing him against the wall. And there were still more coming. As he braced himself against the wall and pushed against the crush in an attempt to get enough room to breathe, he couldn't help but notice that his friends were nowhere in sight. They were all of smaller stature, so maybe they were fine, able to crawl below the crowd. He certainly hoped so.

Jack scrabbled his way up and out of his room and turned to observe the chaos from the hole in the wall. "Okay. I might have not thought this out very well either."

Somewhere in a corner of the room, Kimiko held up the Sun Chi Lantern. "I got it, I got it!"

"Great," said Raimundo, sounding rather strained. He managed to shove his head above the crowd for at least a moment, arms pressed against Jack-bots in awkward positions. "I would  _really_  appreciate any suggestions on how to get outta here."

"But I have not yet gathered very many Wu," Omi protested, muffled by thrumming metal.

"We gotta go  _now_ ," Raimundo shot back, before finally going under again.

"Hold on," Kimiko said, in a tone that worried Clay. His fear only grew when he suddenly saw a thick wall of wind burst forward and sweep across the room, impassively shoving robots – and monks – out the non-existent wall. Now free from any restrictive Jack-bots, Kimiko stood and realized that maybe she should have thought this through a little more.

For the boys, there was a brief feeling of weightlessness before the heavy pressure of gravity and panic set in. Clay found himself accidentally locking eyes with the hovering Jack, who wore an expression of shock and worry. It was oddly soothing. A few seconds into the fall, before anybody really had time to scream, Clay bellowed out, "Dojo!" And then time seemed to speed up the closer they got to the ground, until Clay could almost swear he saw their battered bodies land before it happened.

And then he smacked his face into the comforting, soft body of Dojo. As the dragon shot upwards to avoid crashing into Jack's house, Kimiko leapt onto him as well and the whole group left Jack behind to bemoan his broken robots. Or his mother's garden. Or both.

They were soon high in the sky and already on their way back to the temple. The four monks relaxed as one. No more threats now, beside the threat of possibly falling off Dojo, but at this point all of them were well-versed in dragon-riding. Not to mention that you could say very many things about Dojo, but one thing he was reliable about was his flying abilities. With confidence that nothing would fly into his mouth at this altitude, Dojo said, "You got it?"

"Mission accomplished," Kimiko replied, sitting up again with the Lantern in her hands. Behind her, Raimundo raised an arm for a high-five and she reciprocated without looking. Omi, however, didn't look to be in the mood for high-fives. He cradled his bag of Wu morosely.

"I had intended to come out with more Wu," he said. "This is a rather small fraction of what we had lost…"

Raimundo twisted to look back at Omi and gave a slight shrug. "Hey man, it's no big deal. Like I said, we can get the rest of 'em later."

"I'm more worried 'bout that Hippa Hoppa. Jack only roped it fer a few days an' he was able t' bolster his 'bots somethin' fierce. What's our next fight gonna look like?"

At this, a sly smile crept its way onto Omi's face despite his previous pessimism and he said, "I believe we do not have to worry so much about  _that_." And as everybody watched, he took out Da Hippa Hoppa from the bag.

"Aw  _yes_ ," said Raimundo, clapping Omi on the shoulder. "Never listening to Jack's poetry again? Now I call  _that_  a victory!"

After the brief celebration over Jack's failed career, Kimiko spun herself around to talk to the others more easily.

"Y'know something? It's strange. I almost wish it wasn't over." Her thin fingers tapped lightly on the Sun Chi Lantern, dancing out a distracted tune. "Like…it was exciting. And nostalgic. Or something."

Raimundo leaned back on one arm and pursed his lips in thought. "Well, the world wasn't at stake or anything. That was nice. Just an old-fashioned Wu grab."

"An' we had t' try new things, so…it weren't like our usual scraps with Spicer. Was actually a bit of a challenge, right?"

"It was as though we were novices again, perhaps," said Omi. "Learning our skills for the first time. Being caught up in novel situations without the certainty that mastery would bring."

"Sounds like you kids had fun," Dojo added, breaking the nostalgic introspection with his usual pep. "Does this mean you wanna keep your chi swapped for a while?"

None of the monks even had to think about it. At the same time, with the same tone and the same serious expression, they firmly said:

" _No_."

 


End file.
